068 - Under the Roofs of Paris, 1930, France. Dir. Rene Clair.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

068 - Under the Roofs of Paris, 1930, France. Dir. Rene Clair.

"Sound is the death of film." - Rene Clair.

Rene Clair was a silent film director.  He made his name off silent film hits in the 1920s.

He made films such as The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (1925), The Imaginary Voyage (1926), and The Horse Ate the Hat (1928), among others.

So when sound was introduced to the movies, he resisted it.

"Sound is the death of film."

Was he wrong?

Technically, yes.  Sound was not the death of film.  We have now had sound on film for 90 years, and film is doing fine.

But was he wrong in what he meant?  Did we lose something in order to gain something else?

Maybe.

He would go on to make sound films for 35 years, so one may assume he made his peace with it.  In fact, that he embraced it.

But in that moment he made the statement, when sound was new, was he wrong to resist it?

If a great artist resists technological change, does that make his artistry less brilliant?

Or could his resistance make it more brilliant?

Genius comes out of conflict.

Dialectic.  Tension.  Steel is produced from iron ore smelted in a blast furnace with a little carbon added.  A pearl is formed when a parasite enters the oyster and it defends itself with a coating fluid.

What happens when you cut a slit in a chrysalis to help the butterfly out?  It cannot fly.  It must struggle to break free.  The strength of its wings depends on it.

The early adapters rush out and use the new tools.  Their goal is to make their lives easier.  Sometimes that makes sense.

The great artists embrace the struggle.

Why make it easy when you can make it hard?

Do you want it to be easy?  Or do you want it to be great?

Something interesting happened with the development of sound in films in the 1930s.

There is a period of a few years where people talk.  A lot.  The advent of sound gave rise to the filming of stage plays.

Yet they sound as though they are talking inside of a tin can.  Their voices are tinny, higher pitched, lower in volume, and seemingly coming from somewhere else.  Maybe dubbed in later.

So while many filmmakers were jumping on the bandwagon, Rene Clair was going his own way.

Isn't that the point?

He made his first sound film in 1930.  This one.  Our film today.  Under the Roofs of Paris.

And he uses sound beautifully, artfully, in the form of a tune that you just cannot get out of your head.  And the music.  And some talking.

But he also uses the tools of a silent film.  The physical behavior.  The site gags.  The facial expressions.

And daring camera movement.

How large was that crane?

We come sweeping over the roofs of Paris.  Down to the streets.  And frequently up and down the buildings, looking inside the windows, seeing the different ways people are living inside.  And then we swoop back out again.  And down the street.

In 1930.

With his choices he creates a hybrid that we are not used to.  Something special.

The story is not new.  Three men love a woman.  We are pulling for one of the men.  In a case of mistaken identity he is carted off to jail, giving each of the other two a turn to try to woo her.  In the end she will choose one, and it will be either to our liking or it will not be.

And we can enjoy the journey along the way.

And whistle the tune.